Today after many months of effort we finally launched and rigged our project boat KARL, and took her out sailing. From Palmerston Atoll in the South Pacific to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia where she had most of the frames replaced, the rebuild continued aboard ship during out voyage around the Atlantic Basin. Finally all planked, caulked and painted; her spars and sails shaped and finished and she was ready to go back in the water. Carpenter Tim held a short re-launching ceremony and Vaiufia, our Tongan Lead Seaman gave the boat a traditional South Pacific blessing before the launch. (watch the video) She hardly took on any water on her maiden voyage, and sailed pretty fast too – good job to all of the PICTON CASTLE crew who worked on her over the this transatlantic voyage, and learnt so much about building wooden boats in the process.
SHIP’S WORK: Launch, rig and sail KARL; switch out inner jib and fore royal, replace port fore brace. Clean out the exhaust manifold for the main engine – Jamie and Vicky did this particularly grubby job, and looked rather like coal miners when they were done!
AT ANCHOR: St George, Bermuda (32°22.5’N /064°40.5’W) TIME ZONE: ZD+3
WIND: Force 3, North by East
WEATHER: 3/8 cloud cover (cumulus, stratus), air temp 66F (19°C), barometer reading 1023 millibars, visibility good
SWELL HEIGHT & DIRECTION: no swell inside the harbour.
SAILS SET: All sails stowed